The devourer king suffered the same fate as its lesser brothers, but the price hadn't been worth it. The creature managed to wound the Gregarious Wrath severely. Over twenty percent of her systems and crew had been lost, stranding the giant tunneling machine near the inner core of the Glowing Planet.
Who knew if more devourer kings rested deeper inside. What if an even larger devourer emperor rested in the exact center? The Gregarious Wrath couldn't take on another devourer king even if she wanted to, so the entire deep mining expedition stopped advancing deeper.
While the smaller tunneling and mining machines started excavating the Rorach's Bone buried in the vicinity, everyone aboard the Wrath began to help with the repairs.
They only had a few days to get the Wrath functional again. The end of the seventy-day period loomed closer and the Mech Corps started to plan for a comprehensive evacuation. The Wrath needed at least a couple more days to climb back up to the surface.